Show No Fear Page 10
They had the left boot, the one with the phone in it. “Put it down,” said Gus, managing to keep his tone mild. Releasing Lucy, he headed toward the shallows and was pushing himself out of the water to get his point across.
“Hey, señora,” Estéban called, ignoring him to grin at Lucy. “Is it true what they say about a man’s feet?”
Manuel pointed down at his friend’s boots and collapsed onto a boulder, laughing.
With Gus bearing down on him and angered by his friend’s nonverbal insult, Estéban hurled the boot at Gus. The heavy boot landed with a splash next to Carlos, who snatched it up and swiftly upended it. Flicking Gus a tense look, Carlos rounded on David, who’d been watching passively up to that point. “Who’s in charge here?” he demanded. “Do you want your guests to get jungle rot?”
Coming sharply to attention, David stalked toward his friends to admonish them.
As Gus went to put the boot back with its mate, Lucy realized he’d jumped in with his pants on. If the map was still in the pocket as she suspected it was, it would be nothing but a soggy wad of paper by now.
Oh, no. Surely he’d considered that.
But as he pulled his sagging pants up over the pale strip of flesh beneath his tan line, he sent her a flat look that said it all.
He’d opted to save her when she didn’t even need saving, over keeping the map dry.
Terrific.
If the JIC never got the images they had taken, then all was lost. They might as well not have stolen the map in the first place.
CHAPTER 8
In the dusk’s purplish light, Lucy could see Gus kneeling in the corner of their cubby, taking the sat phone out of his boot. What are you doing? she nearly asked, but the sharp question would have been overheard by the other team members as they settled down for the night.
Her incredulity mounted as he powered up the phone, hiding it inside his buttoned-up jacket. She realized he had to be testing whether it had been damaged when the boot was thrown into the water, but her heart thudded with concern that the phone’s lit display might be noticed by the others.
Dropping to her knees beside him, she helped him shield its bluish glow. Clearly it still worked.
Set to mute, the phone didn’t make a sound.
As he stared down inside his jacket, Lucy regarded its reflection in his eyes. He sent her a quick smile of relief and she realized that they were getting satellite coverage, at last, right here in the camp, where the canopy had been thinned.
With quick thumb work, he uploaded the images of the map to the JIC, waited several seconds to make certain the message was fully sent, then powered the phone down, putting it back in his boot.
Peering over her shoulder, Lucy strained her ears for any indication that the others might have noticed. Hearing nothing but sniffles and groans and low murmurs, she relaxed. Gus had taken a risk, yes, but he’d made headway on their objective.
“Ready for bed?” he asked, casually setting his boots aside.
“Sure.” She reached for her own boots, tugging them off.
“If your clothes are still wet, you’d better take them off,” he warned, stepping out of his pants.
She didn’t even want to know what kind of strange jungle fungus she might contract if she didn’t. Stripping down to just her bra and underwear, she shivered at the encroaching chill. Hanging her clothes up, she joined Gus under the mosquito netting, squirming into the warmth that awaited her under their common blanket.
Her senses leapt as her bare legs brushed his. This was the first time they’d gone to bed together nearly naked. The novelty jolted her nervous system. She wasn’t sure she could even sleep this way. Keeping to the edge of the mat, she tried to warm herself without touching too much of Gus at once.
It wasn’t easy, no more than it was easy to ignore the yearnings that ebbed and flowed in her like a warm tide.
“So what did you do with the map?” she whispered, wondering if the soggy thing was still in his hanging pants pocket.
“Buried it in the woods,” he replied. Without warning, he turned onto his side, hooked an arm around her waist, and pulled her closer. The weight of his sex brushed against her thigh. She was positive she couldn’t sleep this way.
“I don’t understand why you jumped into the water with your clothes on,” she commented, determined to ignore her body’s awareness.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” he replied.
Lucy stiffened. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. If you’d had the kind of training I’ve had, you wouldn’t wonder why. That’s all.”
“So now my training is deficient?”
“That’s not what I said.”
Outside their bungalow, the rebel camp went suddenly dark. Water hissed over the campfire’s embers. Buitre switched off his generator, making the hum of insects seem suddenly louder.
“Look, I’m not trying to fight with you, Luce. We’re on the same side, you know. I’m not the enemy,” he murmured in her ear.
Given the longing rippling from her neck to her toes, she wasn’t so sure about that.
“We used to be best friends, remember?”
A vision of Gus driving from Rhode Island to Washington, D.C., in a blizzard so he could see her over Christmas break put pressure on Lucy’s chest. “I remember,” she conceded.
A long, reflective silence ensued as more memories sluiced through her mind, every one of them tinged with tenderness and love. Had her life really been that wonderful?
“What we had was pretty good,” he commented, revealing that his thoughts ran parallel to hers.
“We were young,” she reasoned. “Life wasn’t complicated like it is now.”
She gave a start at the feel of his finger running lightly from her forehead, over her cheekbone, and along the soft flesh of her lower lip. Desire looped through her, tightening its hold on her like a satin ribbon, matched by equal parts fear.
“Does this feel complicated?” he asked her.
Lucy’s chest felt tight. For the past eight years, she’d focused exclusively on her career. There had been no place in her life for tenderness or honesty. Yet here was Gus, touching her the way he used to, sweetly, gently, summoning a softness she hadn’t allowed herself to feel, let alone reveal the need for. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Why?” His fingers moved lower, down the length of her neck, giving rise to a pleasant shiver, before sliding away to trace her delicate collarbones.
“Because.”
“Because why?” His fingers drifted lower still, warming her as they traced the outline of her satin bra. With a crescendo of desire, her nipples peaked.
She grabbed his hand, her heart pounding. “We can’t,” she protested. But desire outmatched her reason, and instead of pushing him away, she pressed his palm to her aching breast.
Suddenly decisive, he pulled her under him, cupping her jaw and kissing her thoroughly as he settled between her thighs. Lucy clung to him, helplessly responsive, her thoughts spinning in confusion.
But the hum of desire as Gus’s lips trailed fire down her neck quieted her fears.
They were consenting adults, they were married, at least according to their cover, and suddenly it didn’t seem so dangerous, so threatening.
He edged her bra aside, and the rasp of his tongue over her stiff nipple silenced her reticence once and for all. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, reveling in his power and breadth, pleased by the way he’d transformed himself, heartbroken by the reason for it.
Oh, Gus. He must have been devastated when his father died. She wished he’d found a way to tell her, only she had severed communications with him just months before, fully focused on her upcoming career with the CIA. She hadn’t wanted distractions to slow her down.
She refused to consider that her decision had been a mistake. Still, she would have wanted to comfort him.
As he suckled her nipples, she sank her fingernails into the thick muscles of h
is back, longing to pull him closer, closer, but he eluded her, nibbling and licking his way down her torso, swirling in and out of her navel.
Lucy gasped, her back arching off the mat as anticipation bathed her in moist heat. Oh, please, yes. The mountain air touched coldly on her naked breasts, but with the blanket around her knees and Gus’s head between her thighs, she felt nothing but warmth and pleasure and heart-pounding anticipation as he tugged her panties down and stabbed his tongue against her pulsing flesh.
It had to be the danger, the threat of discovery heightening her pleasure. My God, she hadn’t come with another person in the same room for longer than she could remember, and here she was on the verge of shattering already. But then, this was Gus—James, who used to know her, truly know her. She didn’t have to fake it with him.
Adding his clever fingers, he coaxed her higher. Climax ripped through Lucy, so powerful and so endless that it seemed to wring her from the inside out. No sooner did it ebb than emotion ambushed her without warning.
As Gus covered her, nudged her slick opening, and sank implacably inside her, she held in the alarming urge to cry.
What is wrong with you? It’s just sex. Get a grip.
But the gentle rhythm he set resembled lovemaking more than sex. It summoned memories of a simpler time—a time filled with pleasure and excitement, anticipation and optimism. Tears seeped between her tightly closed eyelids, sliding into her hair. He kissed her, and the sweet surge and retreat of his body combined with his tender kisses was just too much.
“Just fuck me,” she ordered hoarsely, tearing her lips from his. Sinking her nails into the sleek muscles of his buttocks, she urged him faster, deeper before his tenderness undermined something she’d worked so hard to build.
His body stiffened in surprise. At the same time, his thumb encountered the moisture at her temple and he stopped moving.
“Why the tears, Luce?” he demanded with puzzlement.
“I’m just frustrated,” she insisted. Her body was drawn as tight as a bow. She just needed release from this internal crisis, and she’d be fine. “Please.” She rocked against him, making demands he was forced to answer.
He complied all too thoroughly, grinding his hips into hers the way she needed him to. Within seconds, Lucy shattered again, as intensely as the first time. With a groan against her neck, Gus buried himself deep inside her and followed suit.
For a long minute, neither of them moved. Lucy, whose uncharacteristic tears had dried, hoped he wouldn’t bring them up again. She turned her face aside, feigning drowsiness as he raised his head to regard her in the darkness.
“I assume you’ve got a handle on birth control?” he asked on a neutral note as he pulled out.
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed, searching for her panties. The Depo shot covered her for three months at a time.
As she settled back upon the mat, he gathered her against him, tucking the blanket carefully around her shoulders. They lay back to front, absolutely quiet, their bodies sated for the time being.
Lucy could sense that Gus’s thoughts were churning. She hoped he wouldn’t ask her any more questions.
A good case officer had to be tough, vigilant, hardedged. Relationships were for one of two purposes only—to appease her basic appetites or to obtain information. There should never be emotional overtones.
So, maybe she hadn’t had sex with Gus. Maybe she’d made love to him.
No! She couldn’t do that. Times had changed. Al Qaeda had attacked the United States on American soil. Now battles were being waged in every corner of the world. Caught in the midst of it, a key player, Lucy held the line.
She couldn’t afford to let her guard down, to be soft, to listen to the yearnings of her heart. She had a job to do.
She couldn’t afford to fall in love again.
GUS SCRUBBED A HAND over his four-day beard and sighed. He’d broken the map’s code. At least, he believed he’d broken the code, but only the JIC could confirm that by looking at a geodetic map, and the guys at the JIC might not have even considered that the camps’ names were encrypted.
He had to get in touch with them. If they directed the Predator to the right coordinates, the spy plane would be able to pick up heat signatures, get a feel for the rebel population, maybe snatch up some radio communications. He needed to talk to his teammates, but the only place the phone got coverage was right here in camp.
Placing a discreet call in the bungalow was out of the question. By day, the female rebels raised the bamboo blinds and beat the mats and blankets to chase out the vermin before sweeping the floor.
There had to be someplace else in this camp that offered a modicum of privacy so he could make a quick call.
Sweeping his gaze over the clearing, he was distracted by the sight of Lucy chumming up to the female rebels at the fire pit. Just the sight of her tightened his gut and sent a wave of warmth to his groin.
She had been just as amazingly responsive as he remembered. He suddenly wasn’t as upset about having her for a partner as he used to be. The experience had been close to perfect, even better than he’d imagined, except when Lucy had shed those private tears. For some reason, though, those tears gave him hope. Maybe she’d been remembering how rare and precious their relationship once was. Or was that him projecting his hopes onto her, setting himself up for a fall?
Catching himself off-task, he turned his thoughts back to finding a private place from which to call the JIC.
His gaze settled thoughtfully on the dreaded shed.
Well, why not? he asked himself. Sure, it was ostensibly filled with hornets, which in equatorial regions carried stingers with twice the venom as in North America. There were probably vampire bats in there, too, and maybe the roof would screw up his signal, but with the shed set off to one side of the camp, he’d have all the privacy he needed for a lengthy conversation.
It couldn’t be any worse than Hell Week at SEAL/BUDs training, he reasoned. Or the mock torture they’d put him through at the Farm.
With a deep breath, he pushed off the bungalow deck, resolved to do whatever it took to get thrown into the shed.
Lucy was going to be pissed at him for not consulting with her first. He hadn’t exactly modeled the concept of teamwork lately, but then again, one of his jobs on La Montaña was to keep Lucy alive and out of trouble, not drag her down with him.
Crossing the camp, he ignored her curious regard as he passed through the muddy clearing toward the orange tree that edged the training field. One of the rebels had left his AK-47 propped against it in lieu of carrying it on his back during drills. Either Buitre hadn’t noticed yet, or he didn’t care.
Arriving at the tree, Gus paused to listen to the deputy’s instructions on burying a landmine. Buitre was down on his hands and knees placing a dud in the wet soil, showing the younger rebels how to cover it up. If the FARC were disintegrating, as intelligence suggested, then this level of training wouldn’t be necessary, would it? Gus wondered.
Picking up the abandoned rifle, he turned it over with the air of a man who’d never held a gun before. From the corner of his eye, he noted Lucy’s tension as she watched him from the fire pit. He’d better move fast before she thought to interfere.
Hearing a rustling overhead, he looked up, making eye contact with a howler monkey. “I’d move if I were you,” he advised. With a final glance at Buitre, who’d noticed him at last, Gus pointed the weapon up into the branches and fired, missing the monkey by a mile.
“Crack-crack!” Bullets splintered branches overhead, raining down splinters and leaves.
“¡Estúpido!” roared Buitre, drawing his handgun as he stormed toward Gus, wild-eyed, his face flushed. “Drop the weapon!”
Feigning startled surprise, Gus dropped the assault rifle instantly. Lucy and Fournier were racing toward him nearly as fast as Buitre, but the deputy got to him first. Pulling back his fist, he plowed it into Gus’s jaw with a swing Gus could’ve sidestepped, only he didn’t.
“Sorry,” Gus rushed to apologize. “I was pretending to shoot the monkey and the gun went off.”
“He wasn’t even aiming at your soldiers,” Lucy jumped in, defending him. “Put your gun away,” she ordered. “It was an accident.”
“Accident?” Buitre rounded on her. “There is no allowance in this camp for accidents. He could have killed one of my soldiers with his carelessness. He must be punished.”
“Comandante,” said Fournier, addressing the deputy by a title calculated to inspire dignity. “Please, excuse Gustavo. He knows nothing of weapons. His sight is poor. I’m sure he meant no harm.”
“You are sure?” Buitre repeated. “I am not. I have watched these two.” He nodded at Gus and Lucy accusingly. “They are not like the others.”
His accusation struck Fournier dumb. The negotiator swung a troubled look between them.
“You’re paranoid,” Lucy accused Buitre. She seemed hell-bent on getting punished along with Gus.
“Let it go, Luna,” Gus advised, sending her a meaningful look. “I made a mistake. I’ll take the punishment. Just stay out of it.”
“Stay out of it?” she repeated, displaying classic Spanish temper. “You’re my husband. You want me to stay out of it?”
He could practically hear her saying, What happened to teamwork, buddy?
Fournier placed a settling hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “I am sure when Commander Marquez arrives, he’ll resolve the matter at once.”
Buitre very deliberately released the safety on his shotgun, causing all three of them to fall silent. “You,” he said to Lucy, who had stepped protectively between him and Gus, “step away from him.”